


Approaching Normal

by AlisOko



Category: Tron (1982), Tron (Movies), Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-16 08:44:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7260604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlisOko/pseuds/AlisOko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1998, after a session with a psychiatrist he’d never seen before, seventeen-year-old Sam Flynn was put in a taxi and sent to McFern Hospital. After turning eighteen, Sam finally gets out and deals with the ever-shifting borderline of sanity and insanity. Finding the grid years later doesn't help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Taxi

“Good, you took your medication this time,” said the Doctor.

  
I’d hoped nobody would notice, today was particularly bad. I had a headache.

  
“You’re still not better,” he went on.

  
When I was forcefully woken this morning by Alan-early, as to get to this appointment-the headache had reached the stage of near delirium that I was forced to take my prescription, despite the side effects. Alan was wavering, seeing the neurotic effects, I felt a sense of accomplishment: I had tried every excuse to escape this particular appointment-a new doctor always sucked-but Alan’s resolve strengthened this morning. Which was how I ended up here, on this lumpy couch, drugged and dizzy.

  
“They’re getting worse-the nightmares,” the doctor said.

He didn’t mention the hallucinations from earlier notes from other doctors, that were surely noted in his stupid thick binder-for which I was mildly grateful. I nodded. He was going to keep talking about it until I agreed with him, so I nodded.

  
“Have a girlfriend?”he asked.

  
I shook my head and he scribbled something down. I couldn’t help but glance at the warped handwriting. Socially awkward?Antisocial. Loss of father figure-perhaps hom.

  
“Hom? Home you mean?” I asked, the question escaping my mouth, confused.

  
“Trouble with girls?” It wasn’t a question, he was already nodding for me.

“Nightmares,” he repeated.

He popped out from behind his glossy wood desk and lunged toward me. He was a balding fat man, beer-bellied and milky white.

  
“You need a rest,” he announced.

  
I agreed. I tried to nod but my head felt too heavy. I did need a rest, especially since I’d gotten up so damn early this morning to see this doctor, who lived out in the suburbs. Alan drove me, but I would have to get a ride back by train, Alan needed to go to work. Actually, I would probably have to change trains twice. Just thinking about it made me tired.

  
“Don’t you think?”

  
I blinked. He was still standing in front of me.

“Don’t you think you need a rest?”

  
“Yes,” I said.

  
He strode off to an adjacent room, where I could hear him talking on the phone.

"No, Mr. Bradley...I strongly recommend it...at least for the sake of his social acceptance with his peculiar prefer-orientation...Yes, Mr. Bradley, I’m almost positive...Today."

I didn’t know it at the time, drugged and docile, but these were my last ten minutes. I thought about the name Mr. Bradley. When Alan first adopted me, I didn’t call him Dad or even Alan, just Mr. Bradley-polite and detached. He forgot his coffee this morning. I had the impulse to get up and leave through the white door I’d entered, to walk to the train station and wait for the train that would take me back to my protective adoptive father, my small bedroom. But I was too tired. He strutted back into the room, busy shuffling papers, pleased with himself.

  
“I got a room for you,” he said. “It’ll be rest. Just for a couple weeks, okay?”

He sounded conciliatory, or lascivious, and I was afraid.

  
“I’ll go Friday,” I said. It was Tuesday; maybe by Friday, I wouldn’t want to go.  
He bore down on me with his belly.

“No. You go now.”

  
He fisted a hand in my hair and pulled my head back, sticking two thick fingers into my mouth.

“Swallow, you dumb brat.” He plugged my nose and I couldn’t help but lick his fingers, swallowing the new pills dry. When he finally drew his fingers out, a string of saliva connected my mouth to his spit-slick fingers. He wiped them on my shirt.

  
“I have a meeting-charity lunch-for ENCOM,” I tried to lie, my lips felt numb.

  
“Forget it,” he said. “You aren’t going to lunch. You’re staying out of the way and going to the hospital.”

He looked triumphant. I couldn’t even resist when he forced my hand to grasp a pen and sign my name on a pile of forms. I tried to call for help but he just thrust his fingers into my mouth again and I sucked them. 

It was very quiet in the suburbs before eight in the morning. And neither of us had more to say. I tried pulling away but he simply tightened his grip in my hair and kept my head bent. My face felt hot and I couldn’t tell if the wetness around my mouth was spit or tears. I heard the taxi pulling up in the doctor’s driveway. He took me by the elbow-crushing me to his chest when I tried to struggle-and steered me outside. With my head crooked under his, I couldn’t escape the smell of his reeking cologne. It smelled like vaseline. Keeping hold of my arm, he opened the back door of the taxi and pushed me in. I thought vaguely about the fact that the “taxi” was black and had no words printed anywhere stating that this was a taxi.

  
The upper half of his body was with me for a second, a fat hand brushing the private place between my legs for a moment. I couldn’t raise my legs to kick him. I groggily wondered if anyone had reported him for harassment.The doctor slammed the door shut.The driver rolled his window down halfway, his words garbled by the partition.

  
“Where to?”

  
Coatless in the chilly morning, only wearing a yellow-orange sweater, the doctor lifted one arm to point to me.

  
“Take him to McFern,” he said, “and don’t let him out until you get there.”

  
I noticed that the doctor pressed a wad of something into the driver’s hand before he nodded. The window rolled up and the car began to drive away. The windows were heavily tinted or maybe it was already dark outside, I couldn’t tell.  
I realized with a jolt I never learned the doctor’s name. I let my head fall back against the seat and shut my eyes.


	2. Paperwork

McFern Hospital  
INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM

TO Record Room DATE June 17, 1998  
Dr. ________

FROM Dr.____________  
SUBJECT Sam Flynn

 

Sam Flynn was seen be me on April 27, 1998; following my evaluation which extended over two hours, I referred him to McFern Hospital for admission.

My decision was based on:

1\. The chaotic unplanned life of the patient at present with progressive decompensation and reversal of sleep cycle.  
2\. Severe depression and hopelessness and suicidal ideas (refer to notes, pg. 7)  
3\. History of suicidal attempts (listed on notes, pg.8)  
4\. No therapy and no plan at present. Immersion in fantasy (The Grid?), continued withdrawal and isolation.  
5\. Possible homosexuality and anti-socialness. 

The Patient had been seen in psychotherapy by Dr.____________ . At no time did I have him in therapy, I only escorted him to the taxi transportation, and the patient knew that I was not a potential therapist. Permission granted by Alan Bradley. 

 

Signed By:  
L.N.H.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, so please feel free to leave constructive critiques and comments.


End file.
